76 Md. 317 | Md. | 1892
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This appeal, taken under the Act of 1892, ch. 506, enacted as section 77 of Article 5 of the Code, is from the final judgment of the Court below, sentencing the appellant to death, on a verdict of murder in the first degree.
1. As to the demurrer to the indictment.
' The indictment contains four counts. There is no question made upon either the first or second count; but the third and fourth counts are supposed to be obnoxious to the objection taken to them by demurrer. The demurrer was overruled, and the prisoner then pleaded not guilty, upon which he was tried and convicted.
The third count of the indictment charges that the mortal blow was inflicted by the prisoner on the deceased in Cecil County, Maryland, but that death, in consequence of the wound, subsequently ensued in the City of Philadelphia, in the State of Pennsylvania. In the language of the indictment, it is charged that the accused, “ on the first day of February, 1891. with force and arms, at Cecil County aforesaid, in and upon one George Dittmar, in, &c., then and there being, feloniously, wilfully, and his malice aforethought, did make an assault, &c., and, with a certain stick, &c., him, the said Dittmar, did then and there strike, giving him, the said Dittmar, then and there, one mortal wound; and of which said mortal wound the said Dittmar, on and from the said first day of February, in the year aforesaid, until and upon the fourth day of March, in the year aforesaid, at the County and City of Philadelphia, in the State of Pennsylvania, then and there did languish, and languishing did live; on which said fourth day of March, in the year aforesaid, at the county and city last aforesaid, he, the said Dittmar, of the mortal wound aforesaid, died.”
The fourth count, charging the felonious assault and wounding as in the third, differs from that count in this,
The death occurring in Philadelphia as the result of the mortal wound inflicted in Maryland, the question presented on demurrer to the third and fourth counts of the indictment is one in regard to which some doubts, it would appear, were entertained in the early days of the English common law. These doubts seem to have had their foundation in certain maxims and practice that originally obtained in respect to the venue for the trial of facts, the reason for which has long since ceased to exist; it being supposed, in the early periods of the English law, that it was necessary that the jury should come from the vicinage where the matters of fact occurred, and therefore be better qualified to investigate and discover the truth of the transaction than persons living at a distance from the scene could be. Hence the venue was always regarded as a matter of substance; and where, at the common law, the commission of an offence was commenced in one county and consummated in another, the venue could be laid in neither, and the offender went altogether unpunished. And even in the case of murder, if the mortal wound was inflicted or poison administered in one county, and the party died in consequence
The principles or provisions of these two English statutes are not exactly consistent, the one with the' other, but the Statute of 2 and 3 Edward VI, ch. 24, is not now applicable or in force in this State, whatever may have been the case prior to our own Act of 1809, ch. 138, sec. 17; and the Statute of 2 George II, ch. 21, was
By section 218 of Art. 21 of the Code, codified from section 11 of the Act of 1809, ch. 138, it is provided that “if any person be feloniously stricken or poisoned in one county, and die of the same stroke or poison in another county, within one year thereafter, the offender shall be tried in the Court within whose jurisdiction such county lies where the stroke or poison was given; and in like manner, an accessory to murder or felony committed, shall be tried by the Court within whose jurisdiction such person became accessory.” This statute, as will be observed, conforms neither to the Statute 2 & 3 Edward VI, nor to that of 2 George II; but it is, as we think is manifest, simply in confirmation or declaratory of the common law. This, we think, is made clear upon examination of text writers of high authority, and by judicial decisions of Courts entitled to great weight in the determination of such a question. And if this provision of our Code be simply declaratory of the common law, as we suppose it to be, the same reason and principle equally apply to the case where the mortal blow or poison is given in any county in this State, and the party so stricken or poisoned shall, in consequence of the blow or poison, die out of the State, within the year and a day after the blow given or poison administered, as to the case provided for by the terms of the statute. In such case it is the law of Maryland that is violated, and not the law of the State where death may happen to occur. By the felonious act of the accused, not only is there a great personal wrong inflicted upon the party assaulted or mortally wounded, while under the protection of the law of the State, but the peace and dignity of the State where the act is perpetrated is outraged; and though death may not immediately follow, yet if it does follow as a consequence of the felonious act within
Lord Coke seems to have been responsible, to a considerable extent, for the maintenance of the doubt that was formerly entertained upon this subject. In 3 Inst., at page 48, founding his text on the preamble to the Statute of 2 & 3 Edward VI, he says : “ And before the-making of the Statute 2 Edward VI, if a man had been feloniously stricken or poisoned in one county, and after had died in another county, no sufficient indictment could thereof have been taken in either of said counties, because, by the law of the realm, the jurors of one county could not inquire of that which was done in another county. It is provided in that Act that the indictment may be taken in that county where the death doth happen.” The reason assigned for this passage from the Institutes can hardly be accepted as sound at this day — that is, that the jurors of one county cannot-inquire of that which is done in another county.
But we have the authority of the great Sir Matthew Hale to the contrary of this doctrine of Coke. In 1 Hale P. Cr., 426, the author says : “At common law, if a man had been stricken in one county and died in another, it was doubtful whether he were indictable or triable in either, but the common opinion was, that he might be indicted where the stroke was given, for the death is but a consequent, and might be found in another county; ’ ’ and
The authority of the opinion of Lord Hale, so plainly indicated in the passage from his work just quoted, has been fully recognized by subsequent writers of high repute. Thus, in 2 Hawkins P. Cr., p. 120, sec. 13, the author says : “It is said by some that the death of one who died in one county of the wound given in another, was not indictable at” all at common law, because the offence was not complete in either county, and the jury could enquire only of what happened in their own county. But it hath been holden by others, that if the corpse were carried into the county where the stroke was given, the whole might be inquired of by a jury of the same county.” And so in 1 East Cr. Law, page 361, that very learned and accurate writer says : “ Where the stroke and death are in different counties, it was doubtful at common law whether the offender could be tried at all, the offence not being complete in either, though the more common opinion was that he might be indicted where the stroke was given, for that alone is the act of
It is not necessary that we should cite other text writers upon this subject; those that we have cited sufficiently indicating the state of the English common law in regard to the question here involved, though expressed with the doubts formerly entertained by some.
The question, however, does not rest on the authority of text writers alone; judicial decisions are not wanting upon the subject.
In the case of Rex vs. Hargrave, 5 Carr. & P., 170, tried before Mr. Justice Patteson in 1831, an indictment for manslaughter charged that A. gave the deceased divers mortal blows at P., in the County of M.,. and that the deceased languished and died at D., in the County of K.; and that the prisoner was then and there aiding in the commission of the felony. Upon objection to the sufficiency of the indictment, the learned Justice, in overruling the objection, said: “The giving of the blows which caused the death constituted the felony. The languishing alone, which is not any part of the offence, is laid in Kent; the indictment states that the-prisoner was then and there present, aiding and abetting in the commission of the felony; that must, of' course, apply to the Parish of All Saints, where the-blows, which constitute the felony, were given.” And there are many cases in this country which hold that,, upon the definition of murder, and the elements that enter into and constitute the crime, the place of the death is wholly immaterial, in the prosecution of the-offender, except in those cases specially provided for by positive statute. In other words, that the giving of the mortal blow that caused the death constitutes the felony; and the removal of the corpse to the county
In the very celebrated case of the United States vs. Giteau, tried in the District of Columbia in 1881-2, and reported in 1 Mackey, 498, this question of jurisdiction was extensively discussed by counsel and elaborately considered by the Court. The accused was indicted under section 5339 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, for the murder, by shooting, in the District of Columbia, of the then President of the United States, James A. Garfield, who, after receiving the mortal wound, languished for more than two months, and died in the State of New Jersey, where he had been taken in the hope of relief. The contention there was, on the part of the prisoner, that the murder was committed only partly within the District of Columbia, and partly within the State of New Jersey, and therefore there was no jurisdiction in the Court in the District of Columbia to try and convict the prisoner for his crime. But this contention was overruled. It was first considered and overruled in the Criminal Court, in a very learned and able opinion by Mr. Justice Cox, before whom the case was tried, and after conviction the case was taken to a session in General Term of the Supreme Court of the District, where the decision of the trial Court was fully reviewed, and the conclusion of Mr. Justice Cox concurred in, though for reasons somewhat variant from those employed by the trial Judge. In the opinion of Judge Cox, the common law
But that was not all that occurred. After the conviction and review had at the General Term, an application was made to the late Mr. Justice Bradley, of the Supreme Court of the United States, for a habeas corpus, on the ground that the Criminal Court of the District of Columbia had no jurisdiction of the offence, and therefore the conviction was void. But that learned Justice, upon consideration of the case, concurred with the Courts of the District of Columbia, in holding that there was jurisdiction of the offence, and that the party had been properly tried, and therefore dismissed the petition. And thus ended that memorable case.
2. The second question presented is one of practice. It arose upon a motion by the prisoner to discharge the jury, during the course of the trial, because of alleged separation of the jury in the recess of the Court. It appears that the entire panel of twelve were placed in charge of the sheriff, during a recess of the Court from 4.30 P. M. to 1.30 P. M., and were taken to quarters provided at a hotel in the town. Upon reaching the hotel, one of the jurors was suffering so much from illness, that he had to be allowed to go to bed, but he was alone, and was locked in the room by the sheriff. At the hour of reassembling of the Court, the other eleven jurors were taken into Court, but in consequence of the inability of the sick juror to be present, the Court adjourned until 10 o’clock A. M. the next day, at which time the whole panel attended. It is not pretended or suggested that the sick juror was approached by any one, or tampered with in any manner. The motion to discharge the panel was founded upon the simple fact that the sick juror had been separated from his fellow jurors before verdict rendered.
In overruling this motion, the Court below certainly committed no error. In the trial of capital cases, even, there are many occasions when in reason, and a proper regard to the needs of humanity, it may become necessary to allow a temporary separation of the jury, without necessarily breaking up the trial, and that even after the jury have retired to consider of their verdict, otherwise protracted trials could seldom be brought to a
It follows that the judgment below must be affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.